Lawrence Durrell: The Dark Labyrinth

Graecen sighed. “Silenus,” he said, using the nickname that Hogarth had bestowed upon Axelos when they were in their first year, “Silenus, you’ll come to no good.”

“She has a little sister who is even prettier and more idiorrhythmic if you’d care to …”

“Now,” said Graecen primly. “I’ve been teased enough, Silenus. On guard.”

Axelos lit a candle; they sat now in a golden puddle of light while all round them the bluish airless evening closed into nightfall. The girl reappeared and placed glasses near them and a decanter. “I suppose Baird will stay the níght up at the monastery,” said Graecen abstractedly. Axelos put his cigar out and opened the game resolutely. “I’ve noticed that all Hogarth’s patients leave hurriedly for monasteries: or become monks: or accept a deaconate on Athos: what is the old devil up to with his analytic game? His last book was unreadable, I thought.” Graecen stroked his eyebrow and murmured something abstractedly.

“Baird was in charge of some guerillas,” he said, having moved, “during the last war. He says he knows parts of the labyrinth well. It’s funny he didn’t come upon your temple — and do you out of it.” Axelos suddenly fixed upon him an eye as round and bright as a button. He gave a chuckle, a deep and ineffable chuckle this time. “Of such are the kingdom of heaven, Dicky,” he said. He seemed about to say more but checked himself. Then he drew a breath.

“Dicky, you’re an expert — you saw it.”

“Yes,” said Graecen, with a startled and defensive air. It alarmed him to be called an expert.

“The sculpture I sent you for the Museum, and the relief — would you pronounce them genuine?”

“Of course,” said Graecen.

“They’re not. If Baird never found the temple when he operated from the labyrinth it was because it wasn’t there. I built it .”

Graecen had a limited range of expressions at his command. He looked pained now rather than surprised. Axelos could not help smiling at the mixture of pain and disbelief that flitted across that serene round countenance. “The stone is from an old dig near Castro,” he said. “The temple I assembled from fragments of marble fished out of the ancient mole. The plinth and the bas relief were done by an old monk here. The sculpture by me.” He laughed until his eyes disappeared completely and his nose almost touched his chin. It was the face of a Greek tragic mask, thought Graecen. It was most disturbing. But then, one could always count upon Axelos for some such ponderous hoax. As a man who took antiquities seriously he felt extremely annoyed. “That was why you warned me not to …” he said unhappily. He remembered the brilliant sunlight leaking through the slit in the roof on to the great bas relief. Axelos said: “It sets a seal upon my career, Dicky, does it not? A triumph of scholarship. I had to wait until the monk died before I could tell the world about it—‘The City in the Rock’.” They sat looking at each other across the chessboard. Graecen sighed and shook his head. Axelos said: “By the autumn the hoax will have been going a year. I then propose to tell the Press the true story. It will underline in uncompromising fashion the two principles in which I believe: that experts know nothing and that archaeology has developed into a science as dull as theology. It’s your move.”

“But your reputation ,” said Graecen, reflecting, as he did so, that the whole of Axelos’ life had been cast in this mould. As fast as he won honours he threw them away; not exactly as if he did not relish them, but as if some perverse quality in his nature denied him the enjoyment of them. There had been first of all, that brilliant speculative reading of Nugatius while he was still in his first year. The Trinity Fellowship had gone down the drain, too. His tutor had said once, “He’s brilliant all right — when the facts fit his fancies.” And now he was being beaten by the same enviable, skilful unorthodoxy at chess. Or perhaps he was not paying attention? One of Hogarth’s funnier imitations had been of Mullins, the scout, leaning breathlessly over his bed, whispering “White chapel today, sir” and adding “Mr. Axelos came in, sir, and told me to tell you he was in trouble again, sir, and don’t know which way to turn, sir.”

As if he had divined the thoughts passing in his friend’s head, Alexos laid down his glass and said: “It’s no use you shaking your head over me, Dicky. I’m incorrigible. On a thousand or two a year one can afford to be. But you’ve been living on short commons too long to realize the inadequacy of our intellectual amusements for a man who wakes up one day with the Platonic fire in his guts.”

His face looked sad now — the face of a ruined pope, in the light from the single candle. He was unhappy, Graecen saw, and his ready sympathy was at once kindled. He sat there staring at Graecen as if he wasn’t quite seeing him, the large, rather feminine hands at rest in his lap. “Check,” he called and blew out the candles, before taking his friend’s arm and leading him slowly into the lighted house.

Five miles away, the American reporter took out his notebook and the various scraps of paper on which he had jotted down items of interest about the affair. He always found it difficult to read his own shorthand. By the light of a pocket torch he steadied the papers on his knee, and, bracing himself against the jolting of the old car, tried to compose his dispatch. There were several interesting notes which would help to give his cable colour. For instance, Sir Juan had several times notified the authorities that the labyrinth was unsafe, that conducted tours should be discouraged. The British Consul himself had tried to dissuade the captain of the Europa from letting his passengers embark on the excursion. Then there was the interesting fact that several expeditions had disappeared in the labyrinth. He had the dates: 1839, 1894, 1903. They were all unofficial bodies and no trace of them had been found. Sir Juan estimated that the ramifications of the labyrinth might cover an area of several square miles. There was a peasant legend to the effect that a large animal of some kind lived in the heart of the labyrinth.

At Canea he was settling down to a cheerless dinner when he received a telegram from his office in Athens giving the passenger list of the Europa —or rather the names of those tourists on it who had set out for the labyrinth.

Mr. O. Fearmax.

Mr. V. Truman and Mrs. Truman.

Miss Virginia Dale.

Captain J. Baird.

Lord Graecen.

Miss Dombey.

The name of Campion did not appear. He ticked off Lord Graecen’s name and that of Captain Baird. They had both been accounted for. The others he presumed dead. He wondered what the chances were of any of them finding a way out. After all, a mere twenty-four hours had passed. Should he stay on a while and see whether time could put a better story in his way? A glance at the forbidding darkness of Canea decided for him. He would catch tomorrow’s plane back to Athens. The rest of the tale, he thought, must be followed up in London. His head office might unearth something of interest by sending reporters round to the private addresses of the victims. He contemplated the list once more before turning out the raw electric light that hung from the bug-ridden ceiling on a length of dusty flex. The name of Fearmax seemed vaguely familiar.…

At this time the liner Europa with the rest of its holiday-makers, lay in the port of Alexandria. The Captain and the purser sat in a stateroom and contemplated the latest telegram from the Company offices in London. Most of the questions contained in it were easily answered. For instance, why had the Captain not organized a search party to rescue the victims? It was a question so stupid that it annoyed even the purser, whose profession had given him the character of a lamb and the omniscience of God. First of all there was no transport to take a rescue party a hundred miles across Crete; secondly, the mouth of the labyrinth had been blocked; thirdly, the Eurepa was on a schedule, and had to consult the wishes of several hundred other passengers. “That’s terse enough,” said the Captain angrily as he read through his own reply. “What do they think we are?” The purser took up the telegram and retired to his own quarters. He unearthed a passenger list and an indelible pencil.